Original subtitles

On the last episode of Ink Master, Return of the Masters.

I'm going to try to be a better coach.

Just please listen.

I will be more receptive, for sure.

The coaches faced off.

Wynn and your team is safe from elimination.

Let's go see.

No pressure.

We don't give a what they do.

Oh, man, this is going to be crazy.

I got to put my money where my mouth is, and I'm over here shivering.

Judges, who had the best tattoo of the day?

The old man out sunk him.

Team Steve, you are safe from elimination.

Yes.

In a massive twist, the judges are not eliminating anyone.

Coaches had to eliminate one of their own.

The game just changed.

You're the judge, jury, and executioner.

You're making a choice.

In the elimination, Anthony and DJ were forced to make difficult decisions.

Team Anthony.

I'm going to pick apart everything that I did wrong, and I'm going to do my damnedest not

to do it again.

I've shown that I'm versatile in a lot of ways.

My choice is Lindsey.

Team DJ.

I bring 24 years of experience to the team.

It would be awesome just to show you that I can listen.

Drama between me and you aside.

I'm going to have to choose Sparks.

You do not have what it takes to be Ink Master.

15 artists remain, but only one will earn a $100,000 prize and

the title of Ink Master.

Try not to go down there.

Worse than you ever imagined?

Much worse than I could have possibly imagined.

I totally tried to get that situation with me and Sparks out of my head, and I based it on

the tattoos.

Which was a bigger factor for Sparks, the teamwork aspect, or how he performed today to the

challenge?

That tattoo had to go.

As a coach, I'm just pointing out the weak, and I have to eliminate them from my team to make

my team go that much farther.

I have the chills because things are going to change, and it's only for the betterment of

all of you.

Get your head right and perform.

Because if you don't, you're going down.

I've been in a lot of competitions, and I'll tell you, man, this is by far the hardest competition

I've been.

I've taken a couple of risks.

I've gotten beat down on those risks, but I'm ready to readjust and bring it, because

This is not getting any easier.

Welcome.

As the intensity of this competition grows, you must handle every curveball thrown your way.

Only one of you will earn $100,000, a feature in Inked Magazine, and the title of Ink Master.

Yep.

For this flash challenge, once again, you will win as a team or lose as a team.

Right on.

And this week, we're testing ingenuity.

Ingenuity is about being creative and solving problems, thinking outside the box.

Today, you must create a giant work of art step by step.

Oh.

Oh, please, God, no.

Painting the front of each individual step, you must transform a disjointed staircase into

a massive, flowing design.

It's a tricky one.

Making the image flow from one step to the next is going to be a pretty difficult task, especially

since they get further away from you as they go into the distance.

So you're going to really need to rely on somebody else telling you if your lines are matching

up or not.

Coaches, you must support your team every step of the way, literally.

For this challenge, you will not only be overseeing your teams to make sure they bring a cohesive

design to life, but you'll be painting

right alongside them.

Oh, heck yeah.

Fail to step up, and your team fails with you.

I'm always down to jump in and get my hands dirty.

Finally.

I'm the old man in the house, you know?

Give me a break.

Can we have a flash challenge where I sit down again and yell at people?

Get a good game plan together, get everybody on board with that game plan, and follow it to

the T.

When we step back, it should look like one cohesive piece of art.

Doesn't have to be a tattoo design.

Win this challenge, and your team will have the power to assign all of the human canvases

in the elimination tattoo.

Awesome.

Let's do it again.

You have five hours, and your time starts now.

All right.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Let's get it.

Let's get it.

Everybody grab a sketchbook.

The big thing in this challenge that's really going to require ingenuity is the way to get

your idea translated from your sketch on paper onto the stairs.

Ingenuity, right?

Yeah.

So we use the perspective.

Yeah.

How is this team going to work together quickly and most efficiently to get this job done?

So what are we thinking for ideas?

A koi.

But Chris, you're going to try to pull that off?

One idea was slain off of the environment.

I was thinking, Goose, because of, like, where we are and what we've been stepping in all

morning.

Our wings tucked in, not like that.

DJ loves art.

And we're surrounded by great artists on this team.

We're just built for flash challenges.

And now that DJ gets to work with us, it's crazy for the other two teams to even think they

stand a chance.

Team DJ.

Team DJ.

We need to come up with a plan and go.

I think symmetrical is the best way.

I'll be doing a symmetrical wall face already right now.

I can't draw a wall from that perspective in a short amount of time.

That'd be super easy.

We've got so much .

We've got to keep the design simple.

I'd rather do, like, loaded fire, boot ahead, like.

Some tattoo .

that they said not to do?

I had a lot of ideas, but they got squashed immediately.

So at this point, I don't give a .

I'd rather do, like, boot ahead.

Hey, is that attitude?

It's not going to work.

We're not going to get anywhere doing that.

We won't.

I'll paint whatever you guys want.

You should do a silhouette with just three people to give the illusion they're walking into

something.

Do you like this idea?

I do.

Let's do this.

How about a peony?

That could work, too.

What's going on top?

Bunch of color.

Let's go with that, right?

I faint.

Purple.

All the way out, right?

Yep, all the way out.

I'm going to fill it with black.

Hold on a second.

Fame, did everybody discuss filling in black, or are we doing outlines?

I thought you said outline.

Outline.

That's what I thought.

Why the do you fill in black?

This dude's on his own thing, man.

Jesus, he's got to start listening.

Jeremy, for some reason, changed

I thought we were going to do realistic flower.

No one discussed that.

Don't just do stuff.

Listen to what everybody's saying.

All we want you to do is just outline the petals in black.

Because now I got to go over black.

If that's not right, I got to go over it with purple, and it's not going to work.

Yeah, I'm getting real tired of Jeremy .

Three hours to go, guys.

Hey, Lil D, do me a favor.

Just give me a mark that way.

Yeah.

We know what everybody's strengths are, and everybody's playing to their role.

I'm designing this thing.

That's where the upper beak will then come down.

Deanna's mixing up colors.

Frank's getting that math down for us.

If it's 50 on each, we can just mark up 25.

DJ is right alongside us in the trenches.

Josh is pushing people's buttons when he finds them.

Tubular.

Tubular.

He's talking like Daniel.

Let's totally tell it's tubular.

She's saying really mean things under her breath.

Would you like me to say it louder?

Shut up, dude.

This is paint.

And they're complaining their paint's not as good as the rest of ours.

I never said that.

Ooh, the paint's .

He's just being Josh Payne.

And I'm just like, just shut the up.

You guys, you're getting all angry and feisty.

Doing a day without your mouth is like, just to be a perfect day for me.

You moron.

Language is really aggressive today.

Shut up, dude.

Every hour counts.

Anthony constantly reminds us, just don't start the fights.

Bite when you need to.

You always got to shoot for perfection.

Painting the tops would have made a difference.

We got enough time to hit a couple of spots.

Four, three, two, one.

That is it.

Time is up.

Team DJ!

Our painting for this flash challenge turned out awesome.

Team Anthony's is just a couple stick figures walking into the sun.

We got a cereal ball on the other side, so if we don't win this, I'm going to be pissed.

Oh, man.

Look at Pretty Boy.

All right, time to critique your work.

Team Steve.

I like the color palette.

I like the dark versus the light.

All the blends look smooth, and the stairs disappear into the image.

But it's a tattoo.

Separate yourself, church and state, from art and tattooing.

The judges specifically said at the beginning of this challenge, we don't want to see tattoo

designs.

So what does Team Steve do?

Tattoo design.

OK, Team DJ.

I love the goose.

Really nice detail in the head and neck.

On the technical side, you guys really show ingenuity sponging to create the feathers in both

the wing and in the body.

Great job, guys.

Team DJ pulled off this work of art with all the details and all the highlights.

I'm not sure we're going to be able to win.

All right, Team Anthony, what was the reason for painting some of the tops of the steps?

The top of the stairs wasn't defining the shadows, so we really wanted to make that pop.

I love these characters actually walking up this staircase.

These breaking rocks up at the top show light sources and cast these shadows, which you brought

down on the stairs there, which I think is a really incredible effect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't get it.

It's just three black silhouettes.

And on top of it, one arm goes this way, and when they went to the next step, it goes this

way, and then went to the next step, it goes this way.

It didn't line up.

You failed making it work on steps.

All right, guys, it is time to determine a winner.

For me, man, the ingenuity part really comes into play with Team Anthony using the steps,

stinking totally different than just a plain mural.

The swan is such a recognizable, readable image, and this thing is detailed.

I'm leaning towards Team DJ.

Chris, one vote for Team Anthony.

One vote for Team DJ.

I think, Oliver, you sway me.

Team Anthony.

Woo!

All right.

The judges have decided.

The winner of today's flash challenge is Team Anthony.

Woo!

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

You guys will have the power to assign all the human canvases in the elimination tattoo as

a team.

Yes!

We got the skull pick.

Team DJ, you need to be afraid.

Very afraid.

Head back to the loft.

I'm getting the worst skull.

I don't know what that's about to mean.

I just got to make sure that I'm not in the bottom three.

He's getting comfortable.

Let's take him out.

The thinness and the frailness of his skin, it almost ripped.

Your team is way more in trouble than mine.

They'll prove themselves.

We're close.

We're close.

Amazing job on the flash challenge.

This is our opportunity to really make our presence known.

Whatever we can do to keep Josh's team from looking like a bunch of untouchable superheroes.

Right.

Sure.

So I think that our main target should be Matt.

That's good.

His personality is not as strong as Josh's.

If we can hit him with something, he's going to take it a lot harder.

He's getting comfortable.

I mean, if you think about Team DJ, they're carrying Little D mainly because of persona.

He's the mascot, the face of the team.

So should we take out Little D to bring them around down?

Let's take him out.

Welcome to the elimination tattoo.

Based on your work today, one of you will lose your shot at $100,000 and the title of Ink

Master.

Your coaches are also fighting for $100,000, and they are counting on you to make it to the

end.

Gotcha, man.

Every artist from their team in the finale earns them the power to call a shot in the master

face-off.

Today, you must use ingenuity to create mash-up tattoos.

Mash-up?

With two completely opposing styles, you must use ingenuity to weave these styles together

in a way that makes sense and creates a cohesive design.

This is going to get wild.

There are a lot of styles in tattooing that are really similar.

And making sure that those are distinctly different while you're trying to make that one cohesive

tattoo is going to be really hard.

Don't make a yard sale of tattoos.

Just do enough to show off and to win.

my life.

I'm nervous.

Remember, after every elimination tattoo, the coaches will deliberate and choose one artist

to put up for elimination.

Let's meet your canvases.

Team Anthony, you won the flash challenge.

You now have the power to assign the human canvases.

So Anthony, pick two artists from your team to talk to the canvases.

Jason and Daniel.

Come on up, guys.

Let's go, Jason.

Team DJ is going down.

But making sure to stir up some of these people's weaknesses, even that are at the bottom,

it's strategy on strategy.

Where do you want it, and what do you want?

A neo-traditional wolf headpiece on a realistic woman on my thigh.

Black work with a three-headed skull with abstract shapes on my kneecap.

Kneecap.

A technicolor, neo-traditional Hawaii-style girl with a black and gray illustrative demonic

side.

Something almost, like, monstrous.

Might want to get something they can do.

Just saying.

She has no idea what she wants.

Her face is running a gauntlet of emotions.

This girl's going to be a pain in the butt.

Colorful, realistic surfer, watercolor waves, and a neo-traditional shark.

You tan a lot?

Yes.

Old tan skin.

Good luck with that.

A black and gray illustrative lion with the neo-traditional colorful lilies.

I want to get a blackwork snake coiled around my thigh with color for a neo-traditional tombstone

and new skull flowers.

You can't do color.

Tazuna canvas with a darker complexion is limited when you've got to choose color.

If you use blue, it will turn brown.

White is going to turn brown.

There's not a lot of people in this competition that have experience with those kind of skin

types.

Traditional black and gray, day of the dead skull, realistic roses in color with a banner.

and a shot glass.

Wow.

That's a lot of .

Six hours.

Yeah.

You good here?

All right, guys, you want to go confer in your shop?

There's a lot of crazy ones.

I'm so glad we got the score pick.

This is the craziest.

Which one should we hit Matt with?

One of them wanted the full color of the tombstone with flowers and a snake.

Dude, I got the other ones in my head.

They would give me something like .

With the challenge and the crazy ideas that the chemists have, we're definitely aiming for

everybody.

Nobody is safe.

Last one.

Gonna make dreams happen.

OK, canvases, one by one, please read the artist's name on the bottom of your skull.

Mike.

Right here, bud.

Jason.

Right here.

Amanda.

Right here.

What's the name?

Katie.

You're welcome, Katie.

We want to see you squirm.

Gary.

Right here, man.

Deanna.

Technicolor new girl with a demonic side.

Lil D.

Right here.

Shots fired.

This canvas is crazy.

Put on the charm, buddy.

Put on the charm.

Rolling.

Hell yeah, I got you, bro.

Jeremy.

Yay!

This hurts her, bro.

He's going to be the worst one.

Josh.

Heck yeah, man.

Wow.

Tattooing old skin sucks.

The elasticity of the skin's gone.

Generally, it reacts a lot more like tissue paper, where when you try to run a line, it'll

just cut.

I'm screwed.

Juan.

Right here, buddy.

I got you.

We got this.

I've never tattooed somebody with this complexion before.

This is a little more intimidating than I thought it would be.

Frank?

Right here.

This just got real.

Daniel.

Sir, that's me.

Fame.

What's up, man?

You'll have six hours to prove your ingenuity by seamlessly combining two styles into one

dynamic tattoo.

Good luck.

In this elimination tattoo, we're looking for these artists to take two or more distinctly

different styles and put them into one tattoo.

Neotraditional, right?

Yeah, with a realistic skeleton.

OK.

This is a pretty good challenge for us to see how versatile these artists are.

The pyro will be black and gray, and it'll have watercolor.

If they can only do one style of tattooing, today it's going to show.

You wanted a three-headed skull, right?

Right.

OK, so it's almost impossible on the knee.

What I was thinking was that the skull sockets would be, like, on each side.

If you want something realistic, I can't do it on your knee.

It's not going to happen.

Well, as long as you can go into the knee.

Your knee being as bony as it is, you're not going to be able to make it look like it's supposed

to look.

As long as, like, there's something on it.

This is a really good canvas.

Thanks, Team Anthony.

Are you opposed to doing your legs at all?

Because they may be more white, a little cleaner, a little clearer, so we get bolder, brighter

colors.

No, I'd rather just want my arm.

OK.

Yeah, I mean, if you're 100% on the arm, I get it.

I want to, like, finish all this and then go down there.

You want the snake wrapped around a tombstone with flowers.

Don't try and talk me out of anything, either.

Do you have any color on you?

This one had color, but I got this, like, eight years ago.

So it's faded.

Whoa, cool.

A neo-traditional technicolor cutesy woman that kind of transforms into black and gray surrealistic.

New school demon girl.

Team Anthony has picked some real crazy canvases for Team DJ.

He and Josh and Matt could be in trouble on this one.

Part rainbows and part darkness.

I gotcha.

Like this?

Not even close.

Like, that's not, no.

I wonder if they were shooting at us with these pics since you got tattooed a day the other

day.

Mm-hmm.

I got first pic the first day.

One thing he didn't account for was the fact that I know my skin type.

Hell yeah, I think we were shot after.

I know Team Anthony's trying to screw me over because I was the first pick.

I'm the guy that's been crushing flash challenges.

They need me out of here.

Still sketching?

It's always a little nerve-wracking tattooing, darker skin.

Lots of open skin, lots of heavy black next to it.

Yeah.

I'm still a pretty new tattooer, and there's a lot of skin types that I haven't tattooed.

This is one that is very new for me.

What was the strategy going into that skull pick?

Stump you.

Yeah?

It's all part of the game, so.

No hard feelings.

It'll be interesting to see if I get stumped.

All right, artists, you have six hours to create a match.

And your time begins now.

All right, let's do it.

All right, I'm going to put your stencil on.

Today, we're testing ingenuity by having these artists incorporate two or more tattooing styles

in one place.

First time's a charm, right?

Yep.

Rock and roll.

I'm looking for the best-drawn tattoos with the most diverse styles incorporated.

I'm going to put a leaf on your knee, OK?

You ready, boss?

Oh, yeah.

What two styles is it going to be?

I'm going to do, like, hard traditional here, and then, like, super light black and gray in

the middle.

Gotcha.

He hates it.

Team DJ keeps saying that they're the top dogs in the house, but this is our chance to be

able to put our foot down and show what we have.

It's got to be heavier.

Oh, yeah.

That rose has to look heavy, because that's what it's supposed to look like.

My canvas wants five tattoos and one tattoo.

A portrait, a shot glass, a banner, letters, a rose.

Either you add on, think about it before you add it.

You got it, brother.

I'm doing this for my family.

My dad pushed me to be what I wanted to be, an artist.

He passed away when I was young.

I didn't want to process it, so I buried myself in my career.

I'm here today because I'm a fighter, and I'm here to fight to win.

Four hours left, guys.

Four more hours.

Need anything, Katie?

I can work on this still.

It's a real skull right there.

The references are so dope.

I've got my hands full.

I got shots fired on me.

Make sure there's just a thin line outside the nose.

Lucky for me, my coach is really good with skulls.

He's trying to help me get through this because he knows that I'm going through a tug of war

in my head and I'm losing my mind.

Make sure there's light tones in there too.

Yeah, I know.

I know that.

There's watercolor.

My canvas wanted a watercolor wave and a black and gray pirate.

I don't do watercolor.

This is a huge risk.

Just make sure it don't get too dark, you know what I mean?

So less is more at first, then go back.

Everyone thinks that Team Steve is the underdog.

So Steve is being a super coach right now because we have to win.

If everybody pulls off these tattoos, I think DJ's team is, they're in trouble right now.

You have two more hours.

Smooth as butter.

That young skin, like a newborn.

They came at me hard with a skull pick.

As soon as I ran that first line, I realized

The thinness and the frailness of his skin, it almost ripped, so I'm not going to be able

to put in a lot of the bells and whistles and flares I would love to.

He wanted realism, but obviously with the skin tone and stuff, kind of structure a little

bit more.

That's a good idea.

I know I'm not going to win this one, but I know I'm not going home.

How's it going in here?

Oh, that's stressful.

I kept this design pretty simple, but I think I might have gone too small with it, and a lot

of the details are getting really hard to see.

The outside petals on the rose, do you think I should leave a skin break, or do you think

I should go solid?

Solid red on the inside.

No blends.

This is not going well.

One hour left, guys.

One hour.

Step right up.

Here's the worst sitting canvas of all time.

She's flopping around like a fish, bro.

He's trying to pull it out.

He's struggled trying to put it together.

He might be in trouble, dude.

It's looking like I'm going to have to do some basic gray shading on the right side instead

of doing the full color that I want to do.

We're almost there.

I'm running out of time.

This canvas is sitting bad.

We're close.

I just want to turn in a tattoo that's finished.

I think your team is way more in trouble than mine.

You think so?

And I'll stand behind it, absolutely.

I should dial 911 on yours.

Oh, really?

Eagles.

There's no clear lead right now.

From my team, I could pick a couple.

Listen, Josh, I don't even get it.

You put a sticker on a surfboard.

That's morphing what?

Matt, you tell me where the separation of styles is.

There's none.

There's none.

They'll prove themselves.

They have to.

Everybody in this room better.

Four, three, two.

One.

That's it.

Machine's down.

Time's up.

No more ink.

Talk about down to the second right there, my man.

Oh, that's so badass.

Dude.

She looks super nice, man.

Thanks, brother.

Thank you very much.

Job well done.

Awesome.

Awesome.

I appreciate it, man.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks a lot.

Oh, .

Black and gray in that face calm down.

Last time I came over, it was redder than your walls.

I couldn't even see your tattoo, dude.

You know there's only so much you can do.

Excuses, excuses.

Oh, we'll see.

Artistically, it's a mess.

It definitely looks like a mistake.

Sorry, y'all.

I am not weak.

I will sit here, look you in the face, and tell you who you are.

Oh, monster.

Team took shots today.

Loaded them all up, shot right at our team, dude.

I was given tissue paper to tattoo.

Matt's girl, that's not easy skin to work on.

Little D's got the canvas I've ever seen.

She was a little wacky.

I touched her with the machine, you know, like the whole time.

My team's falling apart.

I feel like Team DJ is crumbling because of Josh, honestly.

He's got this mentality that's better than all of y'all on your team.

I don't know where you think that I think I'm better.

I've never talked about my work.

I've never bragged about a single thing I've done.

You talk about yourself more than you talk about anybody.

Myself, not my work.

I've been nothing but nice until I get called out every time.

Now you guys made me a monster and you gotta live with me.

Don't be nice anymore.

And you hate that .

Y'all wanted a monster, you made one, and now you're pissed off about it.

Today, you had to think outside of the box to create mashup tattoos.

Let's see how you did.

Team DJ, you're up first.

Let's start with Deanna.

I like the tattoo.

It's a beautiful face.

Her eyes are so nice and smoky, so much depth and black to it.

It has a nice graphic look with the portrait and the red next to the golden yellow.

You do hit two different styles.

I think you had a really good day, finally.

Lil D.

This was a rodeo ride from the start.

It's like riding a roller coaster.

As far as hitting styles, it's more weird how half the face is shaded the way one way and

the other half is shaded the other way.

I don't think it really stands out.

It's supposed to be color though.

But man.

It was supposed to be color.

Unfortunately, we've got to judge the tattoo.

You missed it on the challenge.

A rough day for you, man.

Josh.

Definitely 100% feel you got multiple styles going on in here.

It looks pretty washed out already.

Yeah, he was just so red and tan that I actually tried to design the colors so when it faded,

it held it.

I do feel that it's going to be pretty light.

Matt.

Oh, man, I'm really not seeing the style break up here.

We look into the roses, they're beat.

That red is pretty rough.

The snake is pretty illegible.

There needs to be heavy areas of dark black, obstinately contrasted with open skin to create

contrast.

And you did all this little light, soft, stiffly stuff that just gets lost.

This whole tattoo does not look like you on paper, and it doesn't look like you on the skin.

Frank.

This is the way to really make something legible.

A lot of open skin.

The line definitely looks like an illustrative take.

It's contrasting with the style of the flowers.

You're in your stride.

That's for sure.

Team Steve, you're up.

Katie.

The mixing of styles is definitely there.

But the legibility of the skulls in the center, they're a little too busy and a little too

muddy to really stand out and be strong.

It does take away from the optical illusion of it being that three sides, your process got

away from you.

Jeremy.

I really like this tattoo, man.

I think it shows a lot of creativity on paper.

The idea to make the center planet really plain with the dot, that really stands strong.

That's your strongest outlet to looking like multiple styles.

It's a great look.

Thank you, sir.

Gary.

You definitely hit multiple styles, but this is not realistic hair.

You're just missing the bowl and the meatball.

You got the spaghetti.

Artistically, it's a miss.

Roly.

I really like the sloth in the suit, but I think on a day where you're showing ingenuity,

it doesn't show enough contrast between the two styles.

If you want to win, don't exhaust yourself doing something that you can't win with.

Fame.

This definitely nails it.

You have very cleanly outlined, decently shaded black and gray pirate, and then an interactive

watercolor wave.

The thing that really impressed me the most was how solid the watercolor is.

Because these very soft, pastel-y colors, you really got to pop them in.

You show a lot of ingenuity here.

Team Anthony, you're next.

Mike.

Doesn't really scream out multiple different styles.

I have a pretty big anatomy issue with this tattoo.

Look how far the hairline is from the brow.

It's a tall head.

It's beautifully done, but the design element gets away.

Amanda.

I definitely do see the two styles that are in this tattoo.

Your shining moments for me are the bees.

You get a little bit risky putting that bee in the center in the black on black where it just

gets lost.

Thinking for ingenuity, you've got to think of a way to make this design come together where

everything is legible.

These are decisions that you make.

Jason.

I think the cat got away from you.

The inferred fur patterns give it more of a cover-up feel than a soft, flowing fur feel.

I was just afraid of going too light with it.

Between the black areas that have a washy feel to them and then the very light tones in the

center of the flowers, it gives the tattoo not such a strong, vibrant effect against such

pale skin.

One.

I love it.

For Japanese, it's one of the best six-hour tattoos that we've seen.

It's really bold and solid.

The outline on this thing is perfect.

I think it's tough, man.

I don't feel like you really pulled off two really different distinct styles.

I don't see realism in this tattoo.

I do like the flowers.

I just don't think that you really nailed that part of the challenge.

Daniel.

I think ingenuity here was at the drawing table.

You figured out a way to show geometric dots, bold line work, solid color saturation, and

shading.

But was it a mistake to color green in the bottom fin inside the area where it's dot work?

It did not look cool with just little pieces.

So I did on purpose.

So you're saying it definitely looks like a mistake.

I'm with Ali on this one.

Just looks like you went, whoops.

Oh, .

That's just a bad choice.

All right, guys.

Time to determine who had the best tattoo of the day.

Judges?

For the challenge.

Fame's definitely in the top.

Clean.

Well executed.

I also think that Jeremy did a really great job in terms of putting together a bunch of different

styles.

It is the two most opposite styles.

Super slick, but I can see every detail in Fame's Pirate.

Gotta vote for Fame.

Fame.

The judges have decided that the best tattoo of the day goes to Fame.

Thank you.

Thank you.

OK, remember, coaches, you must deliberate and put one artist up for elimination.

You can all head back to the loft.

Got a bad critique, buddy.

It was a rough day.

Obviously, you're going to come after the dude that was put on paper number one right out

the gate.

We didn't go after you because we felt like that you were intimidating.

We went after you because out of your team, you're the weakest link.

You're lying out your ass.

I picked you because you are mentally weak.

What are you guys even talking about?

I could pick out five people from each of your teams that mentally .

This one has a problem.

She cries every day.

Who cries?

Me?

Oh, yeah, I cry.

I have a lot of .

that I had to give up to be here.

We all do.

I have a six-year-old that's sick at home right now.

He's got kids.

He's got kids.

He's got kids.

You said you don't want to look like a monster.

You look like a monster, because that's who you are.

The point was, are there weak-minded people on teams?

I make one word, and that comes out.

So the answer is true.

I am not weak.

I will sit here, look you in the face, and tell you who you are.

Oh, monster.

And the explosion, that's weakness, right there.

OK, guys, we have the coaches meeting.

And we're going to determine who we're putting to the bottom.

First one that came to mind was Gary's.

Why would he pack in the leaves with green and then go over it with black?

I questioned him the same way.

He said that's the way he does it.

But obviously, you can't argue with the result.

You could argue with that hair, though.

That hair's arguing with itself.

Dee had a crazy, shaky canvas, and he pulled off cleaner lines than spaghetti hair.

If she didn't move, little Dee would still be at the bottom.

It's not designed well.

The whole face alone is bad.

Let's compare this one to Matt's.

The haze around the majority of the tattoo is a big sign.

He had a rough time, and that's where the inexperience comes into play, and it shows.

My team put this out?

I'm not saying it's not a bad tattoo.

If he was not on your team and he was on mine.

Gone.

That's all I need to know.

Today, we're testing ingenuity, taking two opposing styles and mashing them together.

Who would you say is on the bottom?

Little D had one of the toughest outings today.

He was struggling in the room.

He's struggling with this canvas, struggling with this idea.

Not only do I not see two styles mashed together.

There's no cohesion.

Nothing works together about this.

It's really rough.

Shockingly enough, I think this is probably tattooed better than Matt's tattoo.

You just zoom in closely to any one of these three roses.

Technically, they are not well done.

There's shading problems.

There's color saturation problems.

Lack of experience plays a big role in this tattoo.

I had a lot of problems with Katie's tattoo.

When you look at the flower, that thing is so poorly saturated.

It looks like she did the flower, then did the skulls, and then wiped all the black over the

red, just smeared it and muddied it.

It should look like it was done today.

The coaches are meeting right now to figure out who they want to send to the bottom.

I bet I know who they pick.

All right, coaches, which artist are you sitting down for elimination?

Coaches have decided to send Matt Buck down for elimination.

All right, the judges want to see Matt, Little D, and Katie.

We'll see you and the coaches all downstairs.

Well played, guys.

You're an amazing artist.

We're not just going to sit here and let you coast through this .

You'll see me walking back there.

All right, guys, let's do this.

Good luck out there.

Good luck, guys.

Good luck, Katie.

Today, you had to create mashup tattoos based on your work.

One of you will be packing your machines.

Let's hear from the coaches.

Why did you vote Matt to the bottom?

Collectively, I think it came down to the technical struggles that showed on this tattoo.

DJ, was that your vote too?

I was totally against this, fighting for my team the whole way.

And I was definitely outweighed.

Their decisions were made before mine.

It's a hard choice to make.

The trouble I have with this tattoo is there's such a lack of contrast.

This thing looks like it's 10 years old.

I knew I was going to have a big target on my back, day number one.

Being four years into this, there's things that you just don't do.

From here on out, I'm going to be trusting my gut a lot more.

You're a great artist, but you lack experience.

This is a curveball you haven't ever hit before.

If Lil D did the snake in Tombstone, we got a solid tattoo.

If Matt drew this girl face, we got a beautiful drawing.

But that isn't what happened.

This one was a struggle because it was more about just trying to get it in there.

The second she's jumping around, you've got to change your idea.

If you had a little bit more of an interesting drawing, there wouldn't be debates back and

forth on which direction we're leaning.

I understand.

Katie, the reason you're down here is technical application.

You've got to be more precise.

You've got to get it clean.

You've got to get it solid.

I worked my ass off to even be here.

I gave up a lot of time with my daughter.

I'm a young mom, 25.

I have a six-year-old at home.

I came from nothing.

I'm sorry, y'all.

I stand behind Katie.

She did not have the worst in the room.

Teammate or no teammate, my team knows.

Integrity to me is the most, and I won't let people stay around that suck.

I'm going to fight for my team.

That's just me as a coach.

Well, you fight your way, bro.

You do your thing.

I'm talking about me.

OK.

You're always talking about you.

If you were as good as me, you would too.

Wait till the finale, bro.

You're about to get sniped out quick.

You're going to have to wait.

Eat you up, spit you out like a purple Jolly Rancher, mother .

It's time for the judges to decide.

who is going home, the challenge of the day being a cohesive design with different styles.

I think Katie hit it the best.

For me, Katie's safe.

Would you agree with that, Chris?

Safe.

We're looking at between Lil D and Matt.

Which of them would you rather wear?

I couldn't make that choice.

You guys are both challenged technically.

You're both challenged with the drawings.

You're both challenged everywhere.

Chris, I've heard you say a million times.

It starts at the drawing table.

I would say that Lil D's drawing is challenged at the onset.

My vote to go home is Lil D.

It's really hard for me to overlook a technical mishap in Matt's tattoo.

My vote's for Matt.

One vote for Matt, one vote for Lil D.

I'm so torn, and it kills me.

Got to go with Matt.

The judges have decided.

Matt.

You do not have what it takes to be Ink Master.

I am really a fan of your art.

But these mistakes, these are things that are just a lack of being in the game long enough

to know how to treat these situations.

Hopefully, one day, I'll come in here with substantially more experience under my belt, and

you'll see a real monster then.

You're going to be one to watch.

Please pack your machines and close shop.

Thank you, guys.

Good luck to all of you.

It's pretty funny that these dudes with so much more experience than me were all targeting

me when I'm just fresh out the gate.

But when you can draw as well as I can, that's a threat.

I've seen what the holes in my game are now.

I'm going to plug them up.

I'm going to be untouchable.

Everyone thought that we were the weakest link.

Bro's on now.

Team DJ is wheeling right now.

I'm ready to fight.

We're taking them out one way or the other.

There's nothing about that that is my design.

I think there was just a miscommunication there.

I'm not even listening anymore.

So you can talk all you want.

I'm done.

Wait until you get at the top.

It feels good.

Do not .

Your opinion to me means nothing.

You're a wannabe.

I am a thing.

You guys are blind to what the is going on.

No one is blind to half your team.

Follow those lines and cuts and up.